Superintendent's Update

May 2025

RYE NECK'S 2025-26 SCHOOL YEAR BUDGET

Dear Rye Neck Families,

The big date to remember this year is Tuesday, May 20th, the statewide day designated for both school budgets and trustee elections. Our Board of Education formally adopted our proposed budget for next year at their recent April 22nd meeting and our final budget hearing is on May 7th at 9:00 AM at Daniel Warren. Please click the 2025-26 Budget Information tab on our District website for full details.

In addition to the district’s budget vote, qualified voters have the opportunity to elect trustees to the Board of Education. Rye Neck’s Board is made up of six members who are elected for three-year terms, with terms staggered so that each year the terms of two members expire. This year, the terms of Gloria Golle and Elizabeth Yong are ending. Two-term Trustee Golle is retiring from Board Service while Trustee Yong is running for a second term. She is joined on the ballot by Ruth Homberg and Alex Rainert. We look forward to seeing you at the polls on May 20th.

Best Regards,

Dr. Eric Lutinski

Superintendent of Schools

EMERGENCY CLOSURE DAY REMINDER

We included a reminder in our March 28th principal weeklies regarding our annual district calendar’s Emergency Closure Days. These are days when there is no school unless there is a previous emergency closure. In the event of an emergency closure, we use those dates in a predetermined order to make up school time. In this year’s calendar the dates were, in order of expected use, May 27th, April 21st, and May 23rd. Since we had no school on February 6th due to inclement weather, we are currently scheduled to have school on May 27th. However, since that was our only day lost this year, there is no school in session on May 23rd for the same reason we had no school on April 21st.

EARLY RELEASE DAYS

Our final Rye Neck Strategic Plan Early Release Day was last Wednesday. On behalf of our administration and staff, I want to say THANK YOU to our community for accommodating this new tool for providing professional learning opportunities for our staff. From the outset, we took a serious approach to our three Strategic Plan goals: to promote active and reflective problem solving; to build empathetic environments with real world connections; and to improve professional learning to provide transformational experiences.

We took advantage of our prescribed Wednesday afternoon meeting times when our faculty stays afterschool for professional activities by adding the Early Release time on the six Wednesdays we designed this year. This allowed us to augment our staff time with minimal loss of instructional time. Progress on all three goals through work on the Question Formulation Technique and Dream Projects; Social-Emotional Screeners and Wellness Day Planning; and Professional Learning Communities and Intervisitations was made possible by the creative use of professional time afforded by our parent community.

WELCOME TO MICHAEL BURKE

Rye Neck’s next superintendent was appointed at our April Board of Education meeting. Michael Burke has since visited our district and will do so several more times before the end of the school year to meet with administrators and the leadership of both our teacher’s association and parents groups. He has had the opportunity to see students in the hallways and events such as our annual HS Spring Concert last week. We look forward to seeing Mr. Burke around our schools between now and the beginning of his full-time service on July 1st. Welcome to Mike Burke!

STAFF SPOTLIGHT

We also like to highlight teachers and other staff members each month. Each shares personal reflections on how they got into education, memories from their time as students, and their favorite activities outside of school. To read about a staff member, click on the name below their picture.